In the 21st century, life is going at an unstoppable pace, efficiency and time optimization has begun to take center stage in people's life. In such a society, it is especially hard for families with multiple kids to find the time to complete all the required tasks. Consequently, many consume ready-to-eat meals. It is thus hard for working families having to feed or prepare meals for their kids without having the proper time to cook. Basically, when time is missing, they end up in restaurants or worse, in fast food chains. If they persevere enough to find the adequate time for cooking, and still feel like cooking, they end up working hard to produce the same meal for the whole family and spending precious time cleaning the kitchen afterward.
Sous-vide cooking has been around for some time, and several appliances are available for such cooking techniques. Sous-vide cooking principles are simple—food contained in a bag is introduced in hot liquid for cooking. As simple as the technique may look, manually executing sous-vide cooking and obtaining a desirable level of cooking is a complex task. The temperature of the liquid, such as water, must be precise and constant. Hot liquid must constantly circulate around the bag in order to keep a constant “energy transfer” from the liquid to the food during the cooking period. The cooking time is also an important issue that should not be overlooked.
Appliances to handle liquid temperature and circulation (e.g. Thermo Circulator) are known in the art. Typically, such appliances use a container to keep hot liquid and an alarm clock to calculate the duration. However, they cook the entire food pouch at the same time without distinction on its various components, giving rise to cooking conditions being far from optimal.
No single appliance is known to cook different parts of a meal (i.e. steak, potato, vegetables, etc.) during different time periods resulting in the optimal cooking duration for each part of a single meal. For multiple meals, none of the known appliances are designed, or even capable of cooking different meals at different times to feed a group of people, neither do they synchronize all the process to produce all the meals at the same ending time to serve every guest at the same moment. Additionally, none of them has the ability to preserve a meal and start the cooking process at a precise moment on demand.
There is thus a need for an integrated apparatus containing a preservation zone, an immersion zone for cooking and a zone for keeping food ready to be served, ideally at a precise moment. Similarly there is a need for a method to keep food at the right temperature for preservation, to immerse the food in hot liquid, such as water, to end up with a meal or all parts of a meal ready to be served at a predetermined time.